Leaving Freetown at 6:30 am, we take the road with Fr. David, as driver, and Fr. Valéry, a colleague, as travel companion.

He put on his beautiful white cassock to facilitate the passage at the checkposts. We cross the Sierra Leone from south-West to East to reach Foya in Liberia. Of the 400 kms road to destination, the first 340 kilometers was a good road, no holes. But the last few 64 kilometers was not easy! We are in the mountainous area, the rugged landscape but especially the road. We climb, descend, real roller coasters in rocky ways. We were shaken on all sides, luckily we had the seat belt and an experienced driver. After 10 kilometers of bad road, we stopped to film this road, a motorbike is bogged down because when there are no rocks, it is the very sticky clay that filled the road. We spoke with the bike owner to ask him if we had passed the worst, but he told us that what we have done is nothing and that, it is not even sure that we can pass! At any chance, we ask him if there is another way of rescue, he indicated a shortcut for us. He is like our guardian angel who showed us the way. The road is as much worst but the car passes, the hours turn and the kilometers are frozen. It was 11:30 at the entrance of the bad road, at 15h 45, after 4 hours drive, we finally arrived at the border village where a young diocesan priest was waiting for us with a good meal: “Welcome to paradise!” He told us. “Yes, but we had to go through hell” I replied. After meals, he accompanied us to the border checkpost where Fr. Eric Aka, sma, also in cassock, was waiting for us. Leaving Sierra Leone was very easy, our names entered in the register and a stroke of stamp on the passports, and it’s done. We were persuaded to do the same in Liberia.

But for our astonishment, two persons, colorful figures, took our passports, the attendant who had mine stayed for five to ten minutes, gazing at the cover page, the one with Joseph’s passport, leafing, returns to the front page, restarts again, one wonders what is he looking for. Then suddenly stopping on one of the many stamps adorning the pages, he tells Joseph, “but this stamp has no signature”, “it was the stamp of entry into France”, Joseph explains to him that there they do not sign. He’s really upset. He starts to flip through the notebook, finally, Joseph shows him where the Liberian visa is. He takes his large notebook and notes the necessary elements. The woman who turned my passport in all directions, passes mine to me and, asks to show the page of the visa is shown to her. It then makes us a new scene because the exit stamp of Sierra Leone is not on the same page as the entry visa. After a long moment, he finally resolves to take his notebook, but writes nothing, he then says that he does not understand the French. Joseph takes charge of dictating my first name, then my name (because he could not understand my oxford accent). The approximate information entered, the woman enters into a a debate of which I do not understand the meaning. Fr. Éric explains to me that he has no right to put the stamp on our passports, the attendant is in another village. After much exchanges and negotiations, we collected the passports and the stamps and we follow him by car. Arriving at another checkpoint, the attendant is still not there, our poor friend, sinks into the bush and finally comes back with the precious character. We leave passports and stamps but the latter does not want to do it on the hood of the car and takes us into a tiny wooden hut to sign and stamp our passports. So we are officially back in Liberia.

The road that leads us to the mission in Foya seems in less bad condition. Here, driving is not about avoiding the holes but in choosing the right ones! At last we arrived at Foya around 18h. The space of the mission is big, there is no fence. Eric repaired the old mission that had been destroyed during the war.

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This region, before the war, was flourishing, but now it is struggling to get out of its situation. Most people prefer small trade to agriculture, they just grow the necessary food. The young buy a motorcycle on credit and make a taxi-motorcycle that passes more easily on the twisted and rugged roads. Some have a small shed and a solar panel and offer for a fee the recharging of mobile phones. Others make charcoal that yields more quickly than the crop but then the little money earned is dissolved in the purchase of foodstuff. It must be recognized that although the region is the third most populated region in Liberia with about five million inhabitants, it is truly isolated by the lack of infrastructure. Before the war, it was considered the granary of Liberia.

Fr. Éric, threw himself into the plantations, several nurseries bloom in the space of the mission. To help widows, instead of giving them money that will be eaten by the rest of the family, he offers them a space and encourages them to cultivate. Eric chose to go to live in Foya because for him, it is really an abandoned place and wants to help them to develop.

17th Saturday morning, mass was at seven o’clock in the morning. It is the harmatan time, it is cold. Fr. Éric celebrated the mass in the church, accompanied by his stagier Emmanuel, and an elderly man and a child form the audience. It makes me think of the parish priest of Ars when he arrived in his region, also abandoned in his time. The name of the parish in Foya is St Jean Vianney!

We have already heard several testimonies of Ebola, among others is also that of Eric, very enthusiastic, full of projects, some of which are well advanced. One realizes that the intuition of our Founder, going to the more abandoned, is still of actuality.

The post-Ebola is our project of reportage. Éric, showed us how he had awakened the community traumatized by this tragedy by inviting them to rebuild the mission and build the church. Each one put himself there, some bringing sand, others working on brick blocks, others Fetching water. This project to build the church has mobilized the community. On the benches there are the names written of the contributors in recognition.

On our way to the former Ebola treatment center, we passed a house that was celebrating a funeral. We stopped over there to sympathise with their sadness. We were offered a seat, we were surrounded by the guests of this ceremony. Éric presents our sincere condolences and assures them of our prayers. One of the little neighborhood leaders speaks to us as to how we are going to help them (that is, how much we are going to give for their funeral), he certainly had already well begun the reservation. Eric pointed out that we were passing by and, out of respect, we stopped, offered them our prayer and our sympathy and it was not good to ask the stranger what to give. Behind us, the old people approve to Eric’s response, ashamed of the attitude of this chief.

Eric tells us that people are seeking the feeding churches, like evangelical churches work only for their flock, and the christians in the parish have difficulty in understanding why Eric is engaging in the service of all who are in need and not necessarily the parishioners, to whom he asks to work for solidarity. But they misunderstand him, persuaded that he receives a lot of money and wants to keep everything to himself. Liberia is in a zone of first evangelization even for its Church. For the succession of a bishop, there was a lot of tension, each trying to demolish the other. It was even necessary to give the title of Monseigneur to a certain priest who saw himself already a bishop and who could not admit to being rejected. All this is not necessarily to the glory of the local Church. But this is the time of reconciliation, and the road is still long.

We went to the cemetery of the victims of Ébola that an association had realized far enough in the bush. It is impressive all these aligned tombs recalling some of our war cemeteries.

Having great difficulty in connecting to send you this message, we really have the privilege of living a strong time in communion with Jesus who was born in a nursery because of lack of accommodation and by the indifference of his contemporaries.

Gerard et Guvvala